The former tanker driver’s wildest dreams came true when his lottery numbers came up – but Scadding believes a football miracle could be unfolding as County reclaim their place in the Football League after a 25-year gap.

Les Scadding wants the corks to be popping for Newport County at the end of this season

Lottery winner Les Scadding has dared Newport County fans to dream and emulate Swansea City on their Football League return.

Scadding scooped £45.5m on the Euro Millions lottery in 2009 and threw himself headlong into the role of County chairman when he was not rubbing shoulders with neighbours Wayne Rooney, Joe Calzaghe and Gary Lineker at his Barbados des res.

The former tanker driver’s wildest dreams came true when his lottery numbers came up – but Scadding believes a football miracle could be unfolding as County reclaim their place in the Football League after a 25-year gap.

“The club can go as far as the support wants it to,” he said.

“If we can get the gates up there’s no reason why this club can’t go on and on.

“We’ve played at a high level in the past but I can only do so much because there’s a heck of a lot of finance involved in running this club.

“We’ve got an old ground and can get 9,000 in here, so there’s a lot of work that still needs to be done.”

Chris Zebroski opens the scoring against Reading

But Scadding believes the model has already been put in place less than an hour down the M4 and admits that Swansea’s place in League Two a decade ago is not lost on him.

“Welsh football is on a high and Swansea started to put things on the map with that promotion season when they went up to the Premiership,” he said.

“They play some of the best football in the Premiership and look at where they were 10 years ago – in the same league as us.

“You’ve got to have that in football, be optimistic and have greedy thoughts.

“Unless you’ve got that little belief within the football club you might as well come out and say ‘OK, we’re going to stay where we are’.

“But the players want to go on and achieve, it’s where the manager does his work.”

That manager, Justin Edinburgh, has had an amazing 18-month spell where he first saved County from relegation and took them to the final of the FA Trophy before securing promotion to the Football League via the play-offs.

Edinburgh’s success has put him on the radar of bigger and richer clubs and Scadding admits that he would not stand in the way of his career.

“When Justin was brought into the club it was the best thing we ever did,” he said.

“Justin’s a very honest man, he’s been very up front with us and he’s actually said that being here has rekindled his love of football.

“He’s going to be looked at if this season goes as well as the last one, there’s going to be some big names after him because he’s got that something special to get the most out of a group of players.

“I would never stand in the way of Justin improving himself and becoming a better manager in a better division.

“I am sure he wouldn’t leave us unless there was something that really appealed to him, but I think it would have to be Championship or above.

“I wouldn’t blame him for looking at that or leaving us for a club at that level.

“So if we have him for another season – two seasons if we’re lucky – then fantastic.”

And Scadding’s luck might just be holding given his latest win in Barbados.

“I was on holiday and won a raffle and the prize was a Wayne Rooney shirt,” he explained.

“Then one day I was having a drink after a game of golf and Wayne, his father and his brother came into the bar.

“I had the shirt in the car and got Wayne to sign the front and back of it. He’s a nice guy and I’m waiting for something special to come up now so I can raffle it.”

Newport County boss Justin Edinburgh

It's been a long road back to the Football League for Newport County – but Exiles boss Justin Edinburgh feared he’d never get there.

A quarter-of-a-century has passed since County were last League members and the bumpy journey since has been one of bankruptcy, liquidation, legal battles and promotions.

It’s a story that could keep a Hollywood script writer busy for weeks, but County are finally back among the elite 92 and the next chapter is the visit of Accrington Stanley for Saturday’s big kick-off.

And that will also be the day Edinburgh becomes a fully-fledged League manager after a decade on the outside looking in.

Once a no-nonsense left-back at Tottenham Hotspur – a spiky enough customer to get under Robbie Savage’s skin a fair few times – Edinburgh admitted he gambled during his early days in management.

Unfortunately for him, the dice rolled the wrong way.

Firstly, Edinburgh quit his coaching job at the Spurs academy as he missed what he calls the “real meaning of getting results and working with men.”

So he headed to Billericay but took the first wrong turn when he was lured to big-spending Fisher Athletic.

But the money quickly run out in south-east London, a story that was to be cruelly repeated following his move to Rushden & Diamonds from Grays.

Redemption would only come after he was hired to breathe fresh life into Newport: an unbroken 18-month spell of success where Edinburgh has kept the Exiles up, taken them to an FA Trophy final and into the Football League again after beating Wrexham in May’s Conference play-off final at Wembley.

“I’ve always had a burning desire to be a League manager,” said Edinburgh, 43, who made nearly 300 senior appearances at Southend, Spurs and Portsmouth.

“I worked my way up as a player from the Fourth Division to the Premier League and saw others who I played with or against just dropping into first-team manager’s job in the Football League.

“Sometimes you’ve got to be in the right place at the right time, but I certainly knew I wasn’t going to take the Tottenham job as soon as I retired.

“I’d spent 10 years of my life at one club and that was a bit of a problem for me when it came to management.

“I’ve got to be honest and say perhaps if I hadn’t made the step-up this year I would have been labelled a non-league manager for the rest of my career.

“It was becoming a little bit wearing in non-league and I had made wrong decisions.

“I chased things to get to the top. I left Billericay and went to Fisher because they were a wealthy club, but that only lasted months because it soon evaporated.

“I went to Grays and then chased another one at Rushden & Diamonds, who then went out of business. I went to clubs rather than stay somewhere where I had started something and I could kick myself for that now.”

Given his managerial history it’s no surprise to hear that Edinburgh sees his future in Newport for some time to come.

His representative might have fielded a summer inquiry from Swindon but Edinburgh’s focus is on building solid foundations at Rodney Parade and taking the club forward.

“It’s been a fantastic achievement to get this club to where I wanted to be and where the club needed to get back to,” he said.

“I’ve learned a lot of things at the places I’ve been, but at Newport I’ve got continuity and good people to work for.

“I’ve got a long-term plan and the success I crave for I can have here.

“I’ve now actually found a club I’m settled at and has the same ambition as me – but I also want to get the foundations correct.

“You can always think the grass is greener but I don’t have to look beyond this football club right now for the next three to five years.”

So how far can the new Newport County go? Is it realistic to dream that the Exiles could emulate similar size of clubs like Bournemouth and Yeovil and make it to the Championship?

And is it not only 10 years since the likes of Hull and Swansea were scrapping it out in League Two? A decade on, they are both cavorting among the Premier League big boys.

They might have a rich chairman in Euro Lottery winner Les Scadding, but restrictive League rules mean County must keep a careful watch on the finances and spend more than their earning.

“This club can certainly make League One, whether or not we can do that this year will be a tall order,” said Edinburgh. “Our first job is to maintain the League status we have fought so hard for.

“Sometimes forward momentum will help you and our mind-set coming up from the Conference is to win matches.

“I want success as quickly as anyone and if we get it this year I’m certainly not going to turn it down.

“But I’ve been at clubs in the past who have gone out of business – I’ve seen what can happen and it’s not nice – and this club has to sustain itself.

“I know some people say the chairman should bank roll it, but no club should be reliant on one person’s money because that person could walk away one day.

“We have been labelled the moneybags club unfairly because of what’s happened to the chairman in his personal life – but apart from Christian Jolley, Adam Chapman and a minimal fee for Conor Washington every other player has come in on a free transfer.

“We ran it on a tight budget last year but, as the club grew with the move to Rodney Parade and the gates doubled, we increased our budget as we went along.

“We never put the club in doubt and it will be the same this year. The bigger picture is to grow in the next two three years with the top end of this level and get promotion to the next.”

And, though he might be a Londoner, Edinburgh knows County’s back story only too well – the blood, sweat and tears spilt just to allow football to remain alive in Newport.

“You saw it on the weekend we went to Wembley and won the cup... on the open-top parade and among the well-wishers,” he said.

“I saw grown men cry, men of my grand-dad’s age. There’s a lot of excitement and euphoria about the place getting into the Football League, but those people know the suffering the club has gone through the past 25 years.

“A lot of people before me deserve a lot of credit for the time and effort they put in.

“Mike Everett [football secretary] told me stories that he took money out of his personal account to pay the players when the club first started up again.

“That’s what makes you realise that it’s so important there’s a stable footing for this football club, that they never have to re-visit those dark days again.”

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